Upcycling #4

Hmm...so...  OK, the last dress, with the new-to-me shirt pattern used for the bodice?  Mmmh.  Yeah.  The sleeves Do Weird Things, as I later saw in many reviews of the pattern (whether or not the person who sewed it even realized.)  Plus, since I had omitted the dart and that meant a little extra work to even things out, I decided i was not going to use Simplicity 8523/8061 again as a bodice

except

I really liked the neckline, especially how it was narrow enough that I didn't have to wonder about showing bra straps. (Yes, I know, I could make loops to keep the neckline from shifting around that much.  Don't wanna.)

So, I went back to Butterick 6470, modified with the neckline/facings from Simplicity 8523/8061

except

The bodice for this one was made from a skirt I made a while ago that had the zipper break, and I wasn't immediately inclined to replace that zipper, so it had been in the "mend?" pile for a while...but...when I was looking for something to use with another skirt (sewn when I was pregnant 12-ish years ago) I was going to turn into a dress, I realized that the purple in both of the skirts was too amazingly close to ignore.

and I ended up with this

I did have to scoop the neck line a bit more to get around the fly opening--well, mostly around it.  There is still a visible bit of extra stitches at the center, but I can ignore that when I'm wearing it.  I couldn't ignore how badly I'd top stitched in that area in the first try, so I picked out a few inches of each line and re-sewed...again, I can ignore the areas of back tacking where I started/ended the replacement stitches.

 

There's replacement stitch back tacking on this sleeve, too--I did the usual "press it before attaching the sleeve to anything" procedure, but my actual stitching wandered a bit from where it needed to be.

The facings and sleeves were cut from unused fabric left over from making the purple skirt, so they're a slightly darker shade, which may or may not even out with the rest over time.  I can live with that

because just look how good the overall color match is between these purples

Didn't have enough of the purple left for pockets, so more black was called in for that, once again picking out some of the side seam stitching to add pockets to the existing garment.

The back of the skirt worked nicely for the back of the bodice, with the ends of the darts recalling vintage pattern shoulder darts

All those seam lines provided many opportunities to tack the facings down at the center front and back, as well as the usual shoulder tacks.

Yes, it's wrinkly, but, y'know, I may never wear this out of the house, so...yeah.  It's fine.